Last month's school shooting incident in Winnenden, Germany, opened the floodgates for German government officials to fire criticisms aimed at violent video games. Some have called for tighter restrictions, while others have even demanded for outright bans. Bavarian Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann, a frequent critic of violent games, falls in the latter category. In fact, according to GamePolitics, he think that violent video games are pretty much the same as drugs and child porn.

Calls for heavier video game restrictions are once again set ablaze following the German school shooting yesterday, where 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer opened fire in his former high school in Winnenden Germany, killing 16, and himself in addition shortly after. Kretschmer was believed to be a skilled Counter-Strike player, and now European reps in Strasbourg have voted for a resolution in order to prevent retailers from selling inappropriate games to minors.

Electronic Arts is still running with the Dead Space (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) -got-banned-in-three-countries storyline in the January issue of Game Informer. The difference in the dialogue, however, is that while Germany did intend to ban, they  apparently "came around" eventually and let the game pass through. As for Japan, he cites a very vague "cultural difference" as the reason, while the China/ Korea "ban" was left untouched. See Schofield play the consistency card in the full article.

Who needs Jack Thompson when you have entertainment like this? At a conference in Munich, the sister of an outspoken critic against video game violence called EA a "pig of a company." EA's PR guy says he's glad he wasn't able to go to the conference at all since it would obviously have been a waste of his time.

Pigs the world over unanimously agree that they don't care.

On the balmy shores of Normany, the console wars rage on and it seems Private Sony's gonna need some saving. Check out the full article for more details on the Console Wars: Europe.

So why do teenagers seem to be getting rowdy on the streets nowadays? Breaking speed limits, DUI, and whatnot, teenagers have been losing their licenses to many traffic violations of late. And why is that? Policemen think video games are the culprit.

So, has Dead Space (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) really been banned in three countries? That's what EA says. The latest bit of info on this issue comes from Xbox 360 Fanboy, who reports that EA did indeed confirm the ban in an email sent last week.

Ok, so Dead Space is pretty gruesome. But gruesome enough to get banned in Japan? Come on. Some people - rightfully - have speculated that the news of the ban was just a publicity stunt. The EA devs behind the game are sticking to it though, and they give us some possible explanations behind the ban. So what level of gruesome could possibly make Japan ban a game? Find out in the full article.

If the current listing by the USK board - that'd be Germany's counterpart for ESRB - is to anything to take from, it looks like GameLoft is moving up the pace of mobile development and seeking out bigger markets. Brain Challenge, a pretty popular game that started out on mobile platforms and eventually hit the iPod, DS, and Xbox 360 (via XBLA), has just been rated on the USK as games headed for the PSP, PS3, and Wii.

German fans have reason to rejoice. Electronic Arts has clarified with Eurogamer.de that the initially reported news on Dead Space (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) being banned in Germany is not true. Read up at the full article.